NEST Classroom Observations

Participating in three Native English-speaking teacher classroom observations and learning about how each school has been striving to benefit their students through a variety of programs

 

As Taichung is recruiting more and more NESTs this semester, the English Advisory Group has also been assigned to help evaluate their job performance as part of a panel. I got to observe at three schools and offered my feedback and opinions to the school staff and those foreign English teachers, which was a fantastic learning experience for me as well. The whole process can be divided into three parts:  

 

1.    Presentation

 

The director of the Academic Office or the Taiwanese co-teacher would give a presentation about how the NEST does collaborative lesson planning with his or her colleagues. The idea is to have as much English and cultural exposure for both students and teachers with a variety of club activities and cultural events.

 

I especially admired how they make good use of each school’s unique strengths, such as aboriginal cultural significances, robotics and coding programs, or reality virtual studio.    

 

2.    Observation

 

Of the three demonstration classes I observed, I noticed that they were either theme-based or of textbook extension. For example, one FET taught comparatives and superlatives under the theme, Earth Day. Students were comparing how fast different objects and materials will be decomposing in landfill sites.  

 

Another good example was how a foreign teacher and her co-teacher integrated local aboriginal culture to teach the ordering of Western, Chinese, and Atayal names. Through repetition in different contexts, the students were able to master simple English self-introduction.  

 

3.     Discussion

 

During the Q&A session, the professor and I would get invited to give our feedback and ask some questions. I would specifically point out some highlights, including student involvement, task scaffolding, and real-life scenarios. On top of that, I’d offer my personal experiences and some alternatives to their original curriculum design, too.

 

The classroom observation form has some criteria in it. I had to fill it out and give an overall score and some comments. I hope I was able to contribute a bit to the NEST program by helping review its effectiveness.

 

I was lucky enough to get invited and work with some very brilliant and dedicated FETs and elementary EAG members for collaborative lesson planning once a month. My school doesn’t have a NEST for now, but I learned a lot from them about how this program has lots of room for improvement. The Taichung Education Bureau should’ve done more to improve the program quality instead of focusing on the quantity of how many students to be involved.

 

The whole idea of the NEST program is to help create more authentic opportunities for Taiwanese students to really USE the language. In HPJH, I saw those students were so willing to speak and interact with their FET. That, compared to all sorts of statistics and numbers, is what truly matters.